Light and Dark, Writing with Duende

I have been under forced confinement for an injured ankle for many months this winter and spring. I was finally getting back to myself and my routines and starting to reclaim my optimistic nature when—

Anthony Bourdain killed himself.

Killed. Himself.

I know. You’re probably sick of the topic by now.I’m not alone in being devastated, all the social issues, the memorials, blah, blah, blah.

But, honestly, I was wrecked. For days and days, unable to think about it without crying. It was a bewildering reaction. I’m not really into celebrity culture, and it’s not like I knew the guy.

Except, like a lot of people, I did. He was my friend. He helped me with my cooking and my writing, and I was really looking forward to the day I could tell him that, maybe ask a question I’d been saving up. I admired his work in the world as an ambassador, a man brimming with a lust for life, and I loved his writing.Mostly, I just loved that sharp, droll, incisive mind.

In those first raw days after his death, I remembered something a friend said to me once as we took a break from dancing at the Harlequin party. “Sometimes I think about all the memories I’ve collected,” she said “all the things I’ve seen and learned, and it’s such a waste that when I die it will all just disappear.”

I kept thinking about Bourdain’s mind and memories and what was lost—all those moments of laughing with some old man in Africa somewhere, or walking up a mountain with a shepherd in some village. The first taste of goat stew. That mouthful he’d always remember.

Tragic that we couldn’t download that mind and all of those memories before it was lost forever. All of it, the big mix. We have his work, of course, the books and articles and television shows, but it’s not the same as the catalogued memories of his travels and life, all of it, the ordinary and sublime and crass and disgusting.

Obviously, we would have to download the darkness in him, too. It’s part of the fabric of what made his work great. Bourdain had duende.

“Seeking the duende, there is neither map nor discipline. We only know it burns the blood like powdered glass, that it exhausts, rejects all the sweet geometry we understand, that it shatters styles …The great artists of Southern Spain, Gypsy or flamenco… know that emotion is impossible without the arrival of the duende.”

What is this mysterious force?

Maryanne Nicholls at the Joy of Living writes,“Duende means having soul, expressing authenticity with passion and with no apology. In the flamenco world, it is a spirit that temporarily possess us, an essence that shines through us and is more than us. It begins with our own passions and beliefs that are turned into dance and song and music for the eyes and ears of everyone, expressing the spirit or genius, not of that person, but for all people who are touched by it.”

Duende is the dark magic, the force of Other, that enters the work and turns it from something interesting, maybe even really good, into something transcendent. It is born of the knowledge that death walks among us, that sorrow will mark you with her handprint, that we are all doomed to be forgotten.

The world will never remember that I sat this morning beneath the boughs of a pine tree, looking at a garden I planted inch by inch. The daylilies are blooming orange above the red rose I planted for my friend. A spray of little red-orange flowers bloom midlevel. On the far edge is a delicate wall of asparagus and a lush pink climbing rose. The minute I rise, the time I spent here will be erased, never to be seen again.

Even when we determinedly try to avoid it, we know that death walks among us.

This knowledge is partly what drives our need to post everything we see and eat and touch on Instagram and Facebook and Twitter and Snapchat and everywhere, everywhere.It’s the thing that drives me to journal, trying to somehow hold on to the days that slip through all of our fingers like mist. (What days do you remember? Really remember?Only a few of thousands and thousands.)

“In trying to heal that wound that never heals,” Garcia Lorca says, duende creates “the inventiveness of a man’s work.”

Bourdain’s work is graced with the inventiveness of his struggle. Death and duende walked very closely beside him, and it gives his work an extraordinary sheen. In one of his most powerful episodes of No Reservations, he visited Beirut, way back in 2006. He laughed with people, sat at cafes, enjoyed this little piece of the world, illuminated it for all of his viewers.

And then the war broke out. While they were in the streets of Beirut. The crew had to be hustled off to a hotel outside the city, but they were stuck there because the airport was closed. In one scene near the end, he’s standing on a high patio overlooking burning Beirut in the distance, where only days before he’d been laughing and filming a free, robust society.

He saw the darkness. He let us see it, too. In that instant, the duende imbued his work with a far greater power than the man and his cameraman held together. In the silence, in the image, all the wars of all time, all the stupid violence the world has known, were contained in the stark video of a city we’d all seen in full life and joy being destroyed. The futility is crushing, embodied in the form of Bourdain, watching from his high post. (You can watch the episode here.)

Leonard Cohen’s writing is also soaked with duende. His work is woven with the knowledge that time doesn’t wait for us, that love requires sacrifice, that sometimes our greatest joy leads to our greatest despair. “I caught the darkness drinking from your cup.”The half-mad Suzanne, seducing with “tea and oranges that come all the way from China.” And the very famous “Hallelujah,” when he, the musician with his powerful gift, sings to someone, “But you don’t really care for music, do you?”

Romance writer Laura Kinsale also writes with duende. Her characters are nearly all broken in some way, and falling in love doesn’t fix everything, but it makes it possible for them to continue on a better plane than what they had before.

You know duende when it fills you. It’s when you suddenly get lost inside the book and it takes over and becomes somehow more than what you would have given—or been able to give. It’s when you write something you didn’t know was going to be there and it makes the work so much better you can’t believe you didn’t have it there before.It’s when you see how the webs connect, when you can’t stop writing because you can’t leave the world you’re in.It doesn’t matter what kind of writing it is, or who you’re writing for—duende is what makes your writing burn.

What do you think of this idea of duende? Have you felt it overtake your work, or can you pinpoint a moment in your writing when it became more than you ever imagined, when a force took over and wrote for you? Can you think of at time you saw it happen in a performance? Let’s talk in the comments.

Wish you could buy this author a cup of joe?

Barbara O'Neal has written a number of highly acclaimed novels, including 2012 RITA winner, How To Bake A Perfect Life, which landed her in the RWA Hall of Fame and was a Target Club Pick. She is a highly respected teacher who also publishes material for writers at Patreon.com/barbaraoneal.
She is at work on her next novel to be published by Lake Union in July.
A complete backlist is available here.

This post is wondrous; I love it so much. And I, too, was devastated by Anthony Bourdain’s suicide.

Recently, a friend and I were discussing ‘the zone,’ and what can happen when you’re out of it, when life creates a pause. I think not writing creates a wide open door for defense mechanisms, excuses, fears to creep in and take hold; it’s when all the monsters come in and take up residence under your bed. Alternately, there is this ‘zone’ — a catalytic type of experience when something is clicking so well that you can just go and go and write and write, and be fueled through the writing itself. I was telling my friend that I wish I could think of a hack — a way to encourage that state along, to make it easier to slip into. I wonder if you’ve tapped into exactly that with talk of duende, because what comes clear to me after reading your piece is that you have to give to get. It’s only when you stop, when the monsters have time to invade, when trouble comes–when you forget to remember why you love xyz (your work, your message, your very life).

Give to get. Write, and write, one letter after the other, until the monsters no longer matter, because you are no longer looking out. You’re looking in.

Suicide hit close to home for me last week when our neighbor killed himself. Just like with Anthony Bourdain & Kate Spade, I ache for the children left behind. My neighbor had 4 kids, ages 12-20. I think I write romance because of the happy endings. I can give my characters some measure of peace and happiness that real life doesn’t always offer.

Thanks for this–like so many people I was caught up in Bourdain’s passion for his work and the sadness for me was similar to the death of Cohen. Knowing their unique expressions were no longer possible brought on a mysterious and lingering sadness and sense of loss for millions of us. More than anything, I’ll miss their global reach–the various bridges they built were incomparable and lasting.

“Even when we determinedly try to avoid it, we know that death walks among us.” Yes. And isn’t it strange that fictional characters also experience the poignancy of the passing moments–and that their feeling (and ours) is what gives a piece of writing its power?

I am thinking of Matthew Arnold’s “Dover Beach” in which the speaker stands at the window at night. He looks out at the dark, vast ocean, and he hears the waves bringing in “the eternal note of sadness.”

What a beautiful essay, Barbara! It makes me wish I knew how to access the duende in my own writing, but perhaps it comes on its own.

I remember that episode in Beirut. I was just talking about it to my sister. It rocked me when I realized that there were bombs exploding in the background. In that moment I fell in love with Anthony Bourdain. He had the ability to show us darkness side-by-side with the light. I will always mourn his passing.
As a long-time reader of Carlos Casteneda, I have come to love the notion that death is always stalking us, and that because of this, we are able to embrace life more fully. Also that our darkness is the flip-side of our light. I lost an old friend yesterday, a man who once frightened me until I realized what a huge heart he had. A warrior who wasn’t afraid of the fray. He lived this paradox of light and dark, as did Mr. Bourdain. I told him how I had started wring a book about a girl discovering her power, and how it had mushroomed out into a book about defiance and courage and love. And loss. He approved, which made me glad. This is a beautiful. post, Barbara. Wish I could see your garden! It sounds lovely, full of shadow and light.

“It’s when you write something you didn’t know was going to be there and it makes the work so much better you can’t believe you didn’t have it there before. ”

Best feeling in the world. :)

I really embrace the darkness in what I write, as part of the full expression of what it means to be human. And I love books and movies that crush me in some way, leave me just a little bit devastated. I hope that that sense of the reality of this world, that it’s not always sunny and happy, imbues my work.

But I work at a Christian publishing company and am publishing my first two books with that company. And there is a criticism (richly deserved in a lot of ways) of Christian fiction, that it is pat and unrealistic and too tied up at the end.

My work is not like that. I am a Christian and I am a writer. But not a Christian writer, if you know what I mean. My book is not Christian fiction. So I anticipate that some readers who find this book in the “inspirational” or “religious” section of the store (simply because of who is publishing it) will not get quite what they expect.

Reading Flannery O’Connor’s essays on how people thought her work was too dark for a Christian to write has really helped me as I anticipate criticism.

A line from a song ran though my head at that, “I am the resurrection and the light. He who believes in me will never die.”

To get to resurrection, there had to be death.

I’m glad you’re writing that work. One of my own books deals with a minister grappling with a terrible death in her world, and how that impacts her faith. Important stuff. What do you do if the terrible things happen in your life and you’re Christian? Darkness comes for you, too.

Thanks, Barbara. Funny that I excised a paragraph from my comment when I felt it was getting a little off the topic of writing itself where I mentioned a brand of Christianity that wants Easter without Good Friday, blessing without sacrifice, redemption without repentance, and forgiveness without sin. The health and wealth people have it all wrong and I pity them when they go through dark nights of the soul with nowhere to turn for solace. My Savior suffered. I expect no less.

Dear Barbara
It took me a while to read through this because I was lost in your piercing thoughts. Even after reading all the comments I am still in tears. “… sometimes our greatest joy leads to our greatest despair”. So many moving ideas. I didn’t frequently watch Anthony’s program, but when I did, he always intrigued me. After he died, I couldn’t get enough of the tribute shows and clips of his travels. And the question … why. Yet a deep part of me understood. Unfortunately, and fortunately.
I will print off your column, ideas to remember. Thank you.

Gods afire, Barbara. This very essay is so very connective. For me, it’s a part of all you describe. And it happens again and again – just the right thing, the thing I need to hear and feel, pops into my world.

And I so needed to know about duende. It’s part and parcel to my work, and hence, to my journey. At the moment, I’m gathering feedback on a manuscript, and the two who’ve reported back have said something similar. One said, “It’s sad, but satisfying.” The other went a bit further: “All in all, it’s definitely darker [than book one] and I’m totally feelin’ it. Like things don’t sit right. Again, in a good way, because I need to have these issues resolved.”

I’d been feeling a bit spooked by the feedback. I mean, it’s not negative feedback, but overall, it can’t bode well, right? I can now better see that they’re both telling me that the work walks that dark line that divides sorrow and joy. Perhaps I’m treading a bit closer to our inevitable doom than some will appreciate in their fiction. But today I better understand that I aspire not just to walk that line, but to dance it – to reveal that joy and love are revealed and thrive in the wake of having touched and known and accepted sorrow.

As I say, this serendipity is nothing new for me. And this is not the first time you’ve been the messenger, but this is among the most profound instances of it yet. Thanks much!

Thank you Barbara. I remember reading an essay by a Jewish writer who pointed out that only we humans walk under the cloud of our humanity–that we are mortal and will die. The birds of the air and all in your garden do not have that knowledge. So I must mention Gilead by Marilynne Robinson–a preacher’s questions about life as he faces death. Says that some of us are our own wilderness. Maybe Anthony felt that and it became more than he could bear.

Thanks for this post. I felt a little silly, actually, at how much Bourdain’s death touched me. I talked about his death a lot with friends but I didn’t tell anyone how deeply I felt it, how I cried for days when I thought about it, and had dreams about him. It was a personal loss to me, and I couldn’t account for it.
So your post particularly resonated.
When my first book got published by St. Martin’s Press I was overjoyed to be picked up by one of the Big Five. That was huge to me. But even more than that was the fact that those words are out there now for people to find and read and connect with, and hopefully to find long after I’m dead. My writing is part of my legacy, and one that will last longer than I do, and since I don’t have children that feels especially important to me.

I felt a little silly, too, but even when I first heard the news, from my partner as we drank our first cup of tea in bed that morning, I was devastated. The heart feels what it feels. Thanks for sharing that with me.

Ah, duende…a term I had heard but forgotten. I needed to have brought before me again, thank you. The loss of Bourdain has lingered for me as well, mingling with other grief anniversaries; I’d been trying to articulate for myself a particular quality he had, and that’s exactly it. The last three episodes of Parts Unknown are sitting in my DVR, but I’m not ready to watch them yet, knowing they’ll be another goodbye. Still, I know they’ll be worth it when I do watch them.

In the meantime, such nutrient-rich soil you have provided for us here! I’m still digesting–and will reread this again–but my current MC and draft will benefit from a deeper, more intuitive connection to darkness as well as light. Time to strengthen the strands of the web.

It was good for me, too, as is often the case. I just realized that my WIP needs more of this. I’ve been holding back out of…fear? A desire to be more civilized? I don’t know. But I know how to fix it.

I’ve always admired how you weave your stories with food. I’ve watched Anthony late into the night as he tools around, oh, small town France or working class areas of Japan. His meals more satisfying because his companionship with whoever he broke bread with enriched the broth. And yet, he couldn’t stop growing hungry again. I think I read that his doctor told him his health required him to change to a more healthy diet. Like, how could a man like him give up butter and cheese? I think the act of starting over is one of the hardest things we are required to do in life. How difficult it is to find even one true thing we can hold on to that can give us enough reason to go on. Changing even one’s basic diet might have been his bridge too far. As well, that darkness when we are alone and knowing no matter how much we have, it’s not enough to be content. We humans are a complicated recipe for sure.

This really moved me. I, too, was rocked by Bourdain’s death, in a way similar to how you were. I always thought I’d meet him someday. Get to sit and share a coffee or a glass of wine and talk about meals we’d eaten. Meals we’d cooked. Meals we’d wished we’d eaten.

There was something about his presence that felt utterly intimate, as if we were already old friends.

I miss him, as if he were a friend I’d lost and I can’t think of a single public figure that I’ve felt that way about.

Duende is a powerful concept and I found myself getting chills reading your words about it.

Two of my favorite poems about Duende are from the same author Gerald Manley Hopkins, Pied Beauty, and Spring and Fall to a Young Child. This dude embraced and celebrated Duende. Which is weird because he was a priest.

Thanks for the reminder that beauty isn’t complete without Duende. Your posts are always amazing.

Spring and Fall: To a Young Child

Márgarét, are you gríeving
Over Goldengrove unleaving?
Leáves, líke the things of man, you
With your fresh thoughts care for, can you?
Ah! ás the heart grows older
It will come to such sights colder
By and by, nor spare a sigh
Though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie;
And yet you wíll weep and know why.
Now no matter, child, the name:
Sórrow’s spríngs áre the same.
Nor mouth had, no nor mind, expressed
What heart heard of, ghost guessed:
It ís the blight man was born for,
It is Margaret you mourn for.

Gerard Manley Hopkins

Pied Beauty

Glory be to God for dappled things –
For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings;
Landscape plotted and pieced – fold, fallow, and plough;
And áll trádes, their gear and tackle and trim.

One of the best posts I have read by you. I believe that you also have duende. It’s in the way you express yourself whether it’s with words or through your art. I bawled when I read that Anthony Bourdain killed himself because no I did not know him but I empathized with everything that he was. I loved loved his in your face honesty and wish that more people lived their lives this way without fear.

This is one of the most moving posts I have ever read here, or anywhere in blogland for that matter. Thank you so much for writing and sharing it today. It is a call not just to grief and wisdom but dignity and honor in the face of the inevitable nothingness.

I have nothing else meaningful to add, except this poem by Anna Akhmatova, written for her son who died in prison under Stalin. Her work for me embodies the spirit of duende you describe.

Lying in me, as though it were a white
Stone in the depths of a well, is one
Memory that I cannot, will not, fight:
It is happiness, and it is pain.
Anyone looking straight into my eyes
Could not help seeing it, and could not fail
To become thoughtful, more sad and quiet
Than if he were listening to some tragic tale.

I know the gods changed people into things,
Leaving their consciousness alive and free.
To keep alive the wonder of suffering,
You have been metamorphosed into me.

I’m coming late to this discussion and both your articles and the comments and poems (thank you Bernadette and David) are so rich. It seems that suicide is becoming epidemic. Is it more prevalent with artists? I don’t know. But look at the art of Bouguereau. His pieta was made in the aftermath of the death of his wife and child. He could’ve despaired, lost hope, but instead he gave the world the world’s sorrowful mother holding her dead Son. What a gift!

Faith doesn’t make us immune to suffering or sorrow, or bouts of hopelessness and despair, but I see it now as an inward-focus. Yes, there’s darkness within. But we mustn’t succumb to it. Look to the Light. It can hurt. But it can also save, if only we allow ourselves.

As to your question about duende. I never knew this term until now, but yes, I’ve been overcome too by it, and allowed expression. It can be some of the most evocative writing. Thank you, Barbara, for a great post, and I hope you feel better soon.

Thank you, Barbara for this wonderful essay. I’ve saved it to mull over again and again when I know I’ll need it. There are times when I know I pull back from going into the dark. I brush against it, smell it, almost taste it — and step back.

“Obviously, we would have to download the darkness in him, too. It’s part of the fabric of what made his work great.”

Is it this authenticity that made him great? Do we possess the same opportunity? Can we add that kind of richness to this life in some proportion?

After reading this, I listed those things I consider dark, those things inside from which I hide.

I may never step into that authenticity. I may stay safe inside my own boundaries but having done this exercise, admitted my “shortcomings,” maybe my characters will become authentic, endowed with duende. I am comforted that they will change because I have changed.

Rutger Hauer’s dying monologue in Blade Runner, when he says that he’s seen wars, mining colonies on moons, that no one else will ever see quite like he had. All of our thoughts and emotions are like “tears in the rain.” I may have butchered the exact words, but the same feeling is still there. It’s nihilism, really: the appreciation of everyone’s unique life because of the understanding of everyone’s unique death.